Updated: Thursday, Oct. 29, 04:44 EST
TAKEAWAY; We devoted this blog post yesterday to a unique discussion: do people associate Internet with lower case characters? If so, should the Handelsblatt, which launches its new business format Nov. 2, consider using a lower case “h” for its promos to the online edition? Not having a ready answer myself, I went after an army of expert voices from six continents. It was a marathonic day of exchanging ideas, looking at options, and finally at the end of the day we had a solution. Read on. It’s all here PLUS: Was this the first newspaper design reality show we held here without knowing? Not really, I am told. AND: Mario’s video explaining Handelsblatt redesign
Behold the capital H
At exactly 20h20min German time, it was settled: we would retain our initial concept of the capital letter H for all promos and refers to the handelsblatt.com website.
What a relief! From the editor, to the art director, to the subeditors and layouters——including me——we are happy that common sense prevailed, and that the debate of whether anything “internety” has to be lowercase ended and I owe much of the victory to all of you who contributed your comments. A large majority of you, 95% to be exact, said: keep the H.
Somebody listened.
I will call it the “H experience”
We learn from all our experiences, no doubt. I have learned great lessons from this one.
Without realizing it, I think I was engaging my friends around the world and all of you out there in some type of “reality show” for newspaper design. It was a show that could have been titled “Dancing with the Design Stars”, or perhaps “The H Tango”. Whatever, it showed me how amazingly effective this medium can be.
Some told me: Hey, Mario, you are crowdsourcing.
I said: No, this is more like “expertsourcing”. We had designers, gurus, academics, students—-a variety of nationalities and ages chiming in. If this was a reality show, let us do it again.
But, of course, when I thought this was the first design related reality show of sorts, I was corrected not once but twice:
1. From Reed Reibstein, our always-up-to-date and extremely-well-informed Garcia Media intern (Yale University, Class of 2011)——
“I think this might have you beat for the title of the first graphic design reality show: http://layertennis.com/. Layer Tennis is a contest in which two designers pass an image back and forth, embellishing it as they go until one is declared the winner by the panel of judges.
But your blog post may be the first news design reality show!”
Thanks, Reed. Makes me feel good. We will keep that in mind.
2. From Oliver Reichenstein, Information Architects Inc./Tokyo Zurich—
“Not the first. We did that for Tages-Anzeiger’s first layouts and basic concept way back in 2007 (just changed the brand to Washington Post to get people’s attention and to not tell the competitors of Tages-Anzeiger that they’re planning a redesign).
Design: http://informationarchitects.jp/washington-post-redesign-as-a-wiki/
Concept: http://informationarchitects.jp/the-future-of-news-how-to-survive-the-new-media-shift/
“I now don’t show comments anymore, but we had some really big names (Khoi Vinh, Jarred Spool) reacting to it giving us precious feedback.
“Also, we’re doing it intensely with our latest project (the Italian magazine Internazionale)
http://informationarchitects.jp/internazionale-look-and-feel/
http://informationarchitects.jp/concept-internazionale/
http://informationarchitects.jp/pronto/
How I wish we had a blog when…….
Well, I like the use of the blog to get people’s opinions. This is what this medium is ideal for. In the old days, the issue of this letter H would have been discussed to death in a conference room. I would have gone out for air five times. I would have done a 10k run after the end of the day, for therapy. And there was a good chance that tomorrow, we would still be there.
Which makes me wonder how quickly things would have been settled if I had had a blog for these memorable events in my career:
1. To test the very divisive and controversial use of a blue line under the nameplate of The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1984. Oh, what a headache that was. Some top editors thought that a gray line would have been more in line with the seriousness of the multi-Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper. What nostalgia for those days when classified sections were fat, there was a rolled newspaper landing in the front yard of every dwelling in the city, and editors could afford to spend months discussing the color blue on that line across the bottom of the newspaper’s logo!
2. To check readers’ affection for old, ugly eagles on their newspaper nameplates in 1978: How I wish we could have exposed the design world to the 12 versions of the new St. Cloud Daily Times nameplate—-where I innocently removed an old American eagle that looked more like spider, from the logo of that newspaper. Much discussion back and forth. Will readers tolerate the Times without its traditional patriotic nameplate. It took WEEKS to settle. Yes, it changed to a modern version. Some readers had no idea the old eagle had flown away.
3. To test a logo with a blue background and white letters for Brazil’s Zero Hora. in the early 1980s: Inside the management, the answer was NOTHING is stronger than black to create impact in a logo. With no place to turn but the enclosed conference room for a deep discussion, it stayed black; alas, years later it went to blue. Good thing. Time, I have learned, cures all, including newspaper logos.
4. To show only for five minutes the one front page of The Wall Street Journal that Joe Dizney and I did to see how this venerable newspaper looked without Scotch for headlines. Well, it was not the WSJ, so we abandoned the idea quickly. But this is the stuff that makes a reality show a hit. That was, indeed, a project that should have been videotaped from beginning to end. There were three of us involved in the project: Dizney, art director, Joanne Lipman, project leader, and myself. Obviously, I gave us all names: Joe was Tallulah (as in Tallulah Bankhead, with the deep, throaty voice), Joanne was Mary Tyler Moore (always perky, vivacious and ready to tackle the day with a smile). I was Ricky Ricardo (guess why?)
5. To show those Wall Street Journal pencil vignettes that are such a trademark of the publication in color. Can you imagine Bill Gates looking like Dagwood Bumstead, the husband of Blondie Boopadoop in the popular comic strip, Blondie . Again, these were concepts that lasted minutes on the wall, but we tried them anyway. One rule of thought that I embrace: try anything that comes to mind, don’t get too attached, pick your battles. Sometimes the idea seduces someone important.
This makes me think of Life before the Blogs. As a 62-year-old, I can recount so many truly bloggable moments before the era of the blog. I will try to capture them as I go.
But today, it is a glass of bubblies to celebrate the capital H—- the most beautiful letter in the alphabet.
Interested in the 2005 Handelsblatt redesign?
Go here:
http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002410.php
Explaining Handelsblatt redesign: The Mario Video
Follow ups: capital letters versus lower case
Kelly Frankeny sends us an update on her comment in yesterday’s blog about The Wall Street Journal’s use of capital letters for its online edition logo:
“Wall Street Journal may phased out the logo in button form (it does still appear in the url window), but they STILL use all caps for the WSJ.com logo on the web and references to it in print..!”
And here it is:
The Wall Street Journal seems to be phasing out its circular online logo, but maintains all capital letters in the new one
TheMarioBlog post #408